


articles of faith

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AND LINGUISTICS, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Gen, Gore, M/M, Mairon pioneers neurosurgery, Melkor is an asshole even when he's not, Nonbinary Character, Sort of? - Freeform, co-existence with a corporeal body is hard, especially when the Valar wise up to that fact and start exploiting it, experiential theology, the Valar are clueless, where do I even start
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 22:13:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8595838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Certain terms are familiar among the Powers in Aman. Others - well, others are not.





	

Faith is a nebulous concept, one that is rarely defined to the heretic’s satisfaction and even more rarely to the believer’s. Mairon, for instance, never quite lost their faith in the belief that somewhere, somehow, this all made sense: both the fact that Melkor first saw them crouched in the dirt, their head bowed in fascination as their fingers traced funnels in the muddy loam, and also the fact that they were eventually separated by a divide supposedly as wide and impassable as – well, there could be no comparison, actually, for the Door of Night signified an end beyond all endings.

But for all that faith is hard to define, other things are more difficult still. 

They did not know that then, of course. Instead, Mairon’s hröa had simply reeled when they looked up, ready to lash out with an angry thought at whoever dared to disturb their exploration of Arda’s surface,  only to see that it was Eru’s own first-made Son who had come to squat in the mud beside them. Who sent out a curious query wondering what Mairon had found. Who cocked an inquiring look at them when Mairon raised a shaking hand to show Him the worm that squirmed its way across their palm.

Melkor wore His body like a cloak – a convenience to keep the rain off, but not a necessity in any sense of modesty or rank. His being shone through that body as it would through every fiber and stitch of a cloak until Mairon, doubting the input of their corporeal senses, ducked back into their hröa and tried to see Him that way.

He was even brighter there.

And Mairon adored Him.

They didn’t know what that longing was, of course. No fixed term had ever been applied to it, and certainly they had never felt such a sentiment directed at them before in all its lascivious wonder.

It was not faith, though, despite the fact that there could be no knowing what it _was_.

 ~ ~ ~

Better, perhaps, to say then: Mairon knows that Melkor is worthy of their highest regard, whatever that regard may be and however they might best express it. He towers heads above them both in thought and in stature, and more, they must also admire Him for all that He can do and they cannot.

Does He wish a river to change its course? He need not even wave His hand, and it swerves aside that He may pass with dry feet. Does He wish the admiration and support of his admitted inferiors? He need but wave His hand, and all are struck with the grace of its movement, the ethereal elegance that nothing of matter should retain no matter how high the spirit that inhabits it.

And this is the being that stopped to stoop beside Mairon in the dirt, to concur with their excitement at the texture of mud on their fingers and the slow slick slide of the worm over their palms. Mairon has never felt such awe regarding anyone but their Parent.

So of course Mairon wishes to give Melkor whatever it is He asks of them. But they do not know whether they even can.

There is something wrong with the hröa they were made to create for themselves, Mairon thinks angrily. Something in its stupid head is broken: the eyes drip when Mairon’s fëa burns most brightly, typically in anger or distress. They pull their fëa back, one time, to observe what has gone wrong, and are able to trace the problem back to an organ tucked right beneath the snug confines of their skull. When they are angered or distressed, it seems, that organ pumps specific chemicals along the tracery of the hröa’s nerves: these chemicals in their turn simulate glands in the hröa’s eye-flaps, which malfunction and produce more water than is needed to keep the eyes moist, causing a system overflow.

Mairon is furious. They have never witnessed such a problem among their fellow Maiar: only their own body malfunctions in this particular way.

They attempt every conceivable possibility to repair it. They remove the organ, but then their hröa slumps and will not function without. They replace the organ and cut out the nerves, but then the hröa loses all capacity for motion. Frustrated, they leave the hröa entirely and spend an afternoon digging around in the cavities of the head before popping out the eyes themselves in a last-ditch effort.

When Melkor finds them, Mairon has just lifted their body’s fists and crushed the eyes to pulp beneath their empty hands. 

Without even asking what they have done, Melkor gathers them into His arms. Neither the viscera dripping from the eye sockets of their limp body, nor the blood and bits of nerve dangling from its hands, seem to faze Him: He holds Mairon, fëa and hröa alike, close to His chest as if both were similarly precious.

Infuriatingly, Mairon knows that their body would likely be malfunctioning at this point, wetting their precious one with its maddening and unfixable malfunction, if their hröa were inside it. But then Melkor presses His lips to the forehead of Mairon’s limp body, and all Mairon can think of is how badly they want to feel that intimate touch as more than just a twinge in their spirit: they want to feel it in the flesh, in the way that Melkor apparently intends it to be felt.

They slip back inside their mutilated body just in time to feel the tingling touch of Melkor’s second kiss to their forehead. 

 ~ ~ ~

There is no one to ask about any of it: about the imbalances of power, or the differences in rank, or the uncertainly of dealing with one who is unsure of how they relate to the supposed rules of this shining new world.

Melkor asks for help, just the once. He stares up into the hateful pricks of inadequate light that his sister has tarted up in mockery of their Parent’s many eyes, and he cries to the One _what can I do?_

His Parent does not answer him, and this is how Melkor loses the last of his faith.

It is notable, this loss, for its mundanity. It comes not in battle or in pride or even in desolation: it stems not from being told that one cannot when one knows that one certainly can, and not even from seeing the utter hypocrisy with which the other Powers eventually treat their newest playthings when at last the Eruhini awaken.

Instead, this loss of faith comes in simple uncomprehending disappointment. It comes on a clear, cool, beautiful night when a light wind carries with it the scent of spring flowers and the soft murmurs of an unfouled brook.

 _Faith is something to be safeguarded_ , his Parent had left with him before sealing them all into Eä. _Faith is something you must cherish, and nurture, and protect, and share._

 _Faith in what_ , Melkor now realizes he might have asked. And also, _safeguarded from what? Cherished why? Nurtured how? Protected from? Shared with whom?_

If his Parent could not even have answered these, Melkor thinks, then faith hardly seems a worthwhile prize.

The breeze ruffles his hair as if agreeing with him. 

~ ~ ~

Neither of them has any experience with something like this, this casual intimacy that leaves one turning outside the self for comfort and validation and affirmation –

or, to put it another way, turning to someone who may or may not be there when one looks for them. Someone who does not instantly, already know what the self is thinking. Someone who cannot necessarily understand what the self is trying, and failing, to articulate.

Mairon notices this when they try to explain how they see Melkor.

The sky is velvety and grey with rain that day, and the Vala, always a vision of breath-taking and barely-leashed will, seems alluringly softened by the mist and twilight that color this meeting. Mairon find themselves wondering whether they can capture this version of Melkor, and the odd stirring in the approximate area of their chest cavity, in the fledgling possibilities of spoken language. 

It is still a new thing, this interplay of breath and mouth and throat to produce vibrations that one can then shape into sounds with pre-agreed-upon meanings. Mairon is very proud of the part they have played in this new development: petitioning the Valar to see and accept that spoken language is not a blasphemy against their Parent has been a challenge spanning several millennia, and Mairon has been torn from their body several times by one or another of the enraged Powers seeking to silence their tongue. Once they were even thrown to the upper reaches of Arda itself, trapped up against the sucking vacuum of a great hole into utter darkness, but Mairon never found themselves afraid or discouraged. They had been reminded of Melkor and how He could do as He liked, shaping the world to His will, and they had vowed that language would become their way to do the same.

What was the forcible separation of fëa from hröa compared to such possibility?

Mairon always, inevitably, laughed when they finally found the remains of their body – how amusing, that the Valar thought the removal of their tongue or their throat or their head could really eliminate their resolve! Another one, a better one, could always be built.

They had laughed harder still in those rare instances when the Valar destroyed their body completely, and they had to fight to muster the energy to create one anew – how short-sighted, the Valar believing that such destruction would frighten them! Another body, perhaps finally this time a completely functional one with properly-working eyes, could always be re-fashioned.

In response to the ultimate hilarity, though, Mairon actually had to let their fëa fall to the ground in convulsive fits of laughter when Lord Tulkas finally threatened to hold their fëa captive within their hröa the next time it was torn apart. How unimaginative of the Valar, to think that the temporary pain of a few years’ agony would be incentive enough to abandon an accessible mode of self-creation!

Lord Tulkas had walked away from this exchange baffled, and Mairon, chuckling, was able to slide their hröa back within their fëa and re-assemble their snapped neck and fractured hands with relatively little trouble. A mere strangling, four centuries, and three beheadings later, the Valar issued a decree authorizing the use of vocalized utterances to praise the Creator through imperfect, earthly imitations of the original Song.

Mairon, of course, had soon persuaded their fellow Maiar that one need not follow an audible tune in order to utilize such vocalizations. Why not simply use the words without the music, just to practice? The spoken word had quickly become a novelty, then a fad, and finally faded back into obscurity, but Mairon held out hope that their precious system would someday be seen for its potential.

Melkor had been nowhere in sight this whole time. Only now, as He is just returned to the Blessed Lands from some unknown adventure and soft with the light rain, is Mairon finally able to open their mouth to try and show Him what they have achieved in His absence.

Before they can speak, though, Melkor simply reaches out and plucks their picture of Him from their hröa.

Mairon stops and stands, still, watching as Melkor turns Mairon’s image of Him around and around, examining it from all sides, and smiles, pleased, at its adoring intricacy. He is happy, then, that this is the way Mairon sees Him, and Mairon is pleased that He approves.

But – standing there in the soft rain, and feeling an odd twinge in a perfectly-healed neck, Mairon realizes how much they had been looking forward to _telling_ Him.

Mairon is – happy, that He knows now. But they are also – unhappy, that they could not explain it adequately on their own terms. It is nothing in the grander scheme of things, of course, but Mairon is saddened that even their best and most concentrated efforts were still not enough, that Melkor had still been required to just take the concept from them.

It is Mairon’s first inkling that faith – that believing in something with the express understanding that such belief carries enough force to make those precepts true of its own power – is not necessarily enough.

 ~ ~ ~

When faith is lost, though, something else must spring up to fill its place.

What Mairon finds is an odd sort of trust. Where before they had trusted blindly, now they find they no longer need to. This strange new trust allows them to smile at Eönwë, sometimes, when he insists on congratulating them for the settled new shape of their body: _finally you have picked a single form, brother, and what a pretty one it is at that!_ Mairon laughs with him, and ignores the flare of pain, and holds their head high knowing that Melkor would not do this. The Vala still does not fully grasp the beauty or the utility of spoken language, but then, that does mean He will simply peer into their spirit and see the truth of them. More, He does not care about breaking a “rule” of language that is all of a few centuries old: if He did condescend to use speech, Mairon trusts that He would speak of them as they would ask.

This trust is tested, and earned, and proven. It is nothing like faith.

What Melkor finds is an odd sort of pride. Where once he strove to speak and treat only with those almost as good as himself (not that any could really approach his greatness, of course), now he finds himself watching the antics of a much smaller creature who wishes to please him for himself. It is a strange sensation: most approach him in trepidation at his vast power, and in this at least, Mairon was no different. But now the Maia watches Melkor’s use of that same great power and will not flee or even step aside, instead sending questions and exclamations of delight to him as Melkor works. With Mairon, Melkor’s pride and delight are stirred for utterly different reasons: sometimes the Maia looks to him as though expecting harsher treatment for such simple questions, and is ever grateful and thrilled when Melkor responds with even the slightest of touches or acknowledgements.  

This pride is warranted, and grounded, and useful. It is nothing like faith.

They have no name for this new virtue – it will not be named for years, centuries, Ages to come – but they do not see it anywhere else in Arda save in each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Language notes:  
> \- Eruhini (Q. for Elves and Men: literally "the Children of God [Eru]")  
> \- fëa & hröa (Q., "soul"/"spirit" and "body"/"physical form")
> 
> This was a challenge to myself: could I write a sorta-kinda love story without using the word "love"? (I still don't know)


End file.
